Improving complex web forms
by Janus Boye
September 5, 2011
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“Most of your website’s value passes through forms” says usability guru Jakob Nielsen, so what can you do to improve the user experience of your forms? Unfortunately, if you look for advice on forms, you’ll often find that it only relates to simple examples
To help you improve the user experience of your complex forms, we’ve invited Caroline Jarrett, author of the book Forms That Work, to host a session at J. Boye 11 on Design tips for complex forms. Her advice for complex forms include:
- Find out which parts of it are truly necessary. Can you simplify it at all, or perhaps delay some parts of it until later in the relationship?
- Try to arrange the fields into groups
- Use a progress indicator or summary menu to help users keep track of where they are going in the form.
In her talk on the user experience conference track, she will elaborate on these and more including mobile forms. The presentation will give you tips for improving complex, multi-page forms. Tips will include ideas for:
- understanding the users and the business process
- helping users to find the answers
- making a complex form more attractive
If you want to ask a question about forms in advance of the conference, then please feel free to post it below.